AD4E reading

In October 2016, Jo Watson hosted the very first `A Disorder for Everyone!’ event in Birmingham, with psychologist Dr Lucy Johnstone, to explore (and explode) the culture of psychiatric diagnosis in mental health. To provide a space to continue the debate after the event, Jo also set up the now hugely popular and active Facebook group `Drop the Disorder!’.; Since then, they have delivered events in towns and cities across the UK, bringing together activists, survivors and professionals to debate psychiatric diagnosis. How and why does psychiatric diagnosis hold such power? What harm it can do? What are the alternatives to diagnosis, and how it can be positively challenged?; This book takes the themes, energy and passions of the AD4E events – bringing together many of the event speakers with others who have stories to tell and messages to share in the struggle to challenge diagnosis. Drop the Disorder! Challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis

The poems of Straight Jacket gather bravely at the intersection between LGBTQ identity and the politics of illness, and speak to the consequences of homophobia and social injustice. The book takes readers into the horrors of being committed into a mental hospital and does fierce linguistic battle with stigma, offering witness to failures within the mental health system and demonstrating expressions of the indomitable spirit’s restlessness in times of helplessness and adversity. The collection chronicles in a personal way the oppressive experiences of dehumanization and institutionalization.. Straight Jacket

On December 17, 2006, The New York Times began a series of front-page stories about documents obtained from Alaska lawyer Jim Gottstein, showing Eli Lilly had concealed that its top-selling drug caused diabetes and other life-shortening metabolic problems. The “Zyprexa Papers,” as they came to be known, also showed Eli Lilly was illegally promoting the use of Zyprexa on children and the elderly, with particularly lethal effects. Although Mr. Gottstein believes he obtained the Zyprexa Papers legally, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn decided he had conspired to steal the documents, and Eli Lilly threatened Mr. Gottstein with criminal contempt charges. In The Zyprexa Papers, Mr. Gottstein gives a riveting first-hand account of what really happened, including new details about how a small group of psychiatric survivors spread the Zyprexa Papers on the Internet untraceably. The Zyprexa Papers

This journal has been created for women and girls who would like to explore and reflect on their personal experiences of trauma, abuse or harm they have been subjected to by others. Every experience of abuse or trauma is unique. Our feelings, thoughts, memories and bodily responses mean different things to all of us. Whilst many women and girls have lived through violence, abuse, oppression, trauma and fear – lots of us still have unanswered questions, memories which need to be processed and feelings which need to be understood. Inside this journal you will find hundreds of reflective writing, doodling and thinking tasks which you can do in your own time, at your own pace. Woman in Progress: The Reflective Journal for Women and Girls Subjected to Abuse and Trauma

A Manifesto for Mental Health presents a radically new and distinctive outlook that critically examines the dominant ‘disease-model’ of mental health care. Incorporating the latest findings from both biological neuroscience and research into the social determinants of psychological problems, Peter Kinderman offers a contemporary, biopsychosocial, alternative. He warns that the way we care for people with mental health problems is creating a hidden human rights emergency and he proposes a new vision for the future of health organisations across the globe. A Manifesto for Mental Health: Why We Need a Revolution in Mental Health Care

Conventional therapeutic psychology suggest that we are essentially self-creating and able (with a little help from a therapist) to heal ourselves of the emotional ills that beset us. This kind of view reflects the wishful thinking and make-believe that are necessary for the success of modern consumer capitalism, but it does not reflect the way things are. The alternative set out here, based on the author’s many years’ experience of practice as a clinical psychologist, offers a language and a set of concepts that enable us to understand ourselves as real, embodied beings in an equally real world that resists mere wishfulness. Power, Interest and Psychology: Elements of a Social Materialist Understanding of Distress

Human distress has historically been understood and responded to almost exclusively either as a biological disorder or a psychological deficit. This has led to the development of powerful structures, ‘mental health systems’, that have dominated thinking and practice around mental health and been controlled by the psychiatric profession. Despite widespread recognition that such systems are often ineffective and can even be harmful, the bio-medical ethos, with its focus on ‘mental illness’ and primary use of drug treatments, continues to prevail in mental health practices. This book showcases current projects that offer user-centred, context-informed, non-medical ways of helping people experiencing distress and overwhelm. Inside Out, Outside In: Transforming mainstream mental health practices

What gets in the way of our understanding other people? So asks psychologist Brian Levitt in this challenging and deeply reflective book. Levitt writes with honesty and humility about the profession in which he has worked for 25 years and the people he has worked with. He questions the assumptions that prevent us from seeing people more fully for who they are; the belief systems that underpin all that we do; the devices and methods psychologists routinely use; the influence of the systems within which they work, and the impacts of power and fear. Questioning Psychology: Beyond Theory and Control

Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler’s pioneering work, Women and Madness, remains startlingly relevant today, nearly fifty years since its first publication in 1972. With over 2.5 million copies sold, this landmark book is unanimously regarded as the definitive work on the subject of women’s psychology. Now back in print, this completely revised and updated edition adds perspectives on eating disorders, postpartum depression, biological psychology, important feminist political findings, female genital mutilation, and more. Women and Madness.

How are decisions made about who is normal? As a former consultant to those who construct the bible of the mental-health professions, “the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), Paula Caplan offers and insider’s look at the process by which decisions about abnormality are made. Cutting through the professional psycho-babble, Caplan clearly assesses the astonishing extent to which scientific methods and evidence are disregarded as the handbook is developed. A must read for consumers and practitioners of the mental-health establishment, which through its creation of potentially damaging interpretations and labels, has the power to alter our lives in devastating ways. They Say You’re Crazy

Between the ages of eleven and seventeen, a child experiencing sexual abuse kept a secret journal of poetry. Throughout the abuse, she kept her little orange book hidden whilst she filled it full of poems questioning what was happening to her, whether the abusers really loved her and whether she was normal. Named after the original journal, The Little Orange Book by Jessica Eaton and Claire Paterson-Young contains a unique analysis and exploration of the poems and their themes. Each poem is presented along with evidence from literature and practice in child sexual abuse. The Little Orange Book

How do survivors of child abuse, bullying, chronic oppression and discrimination, and other developmental traumas adapt to such unimaginable situations? It is taken for granted that experiences such as hearing voices, altered states of consciousness, dissociative states, lack of trust, and intense emotions are inherently problematic. But what does the evidence actually show? And how much do we still need to learn? Trauma and Madness in Mental Health Services

In my experience attempts to open up the debate in counselling and psychotherapy around the challenge to medicalised understandings around emotional distress have been met with resistance. Many counsellors and psychotherapists simply do not see this debate as something which they need to be a part of. Finding and reading this book was, for me, a validating relief. Del Loewenthal and the other authors suggest with conviction that this is a discussion that we should be both interested in and concerned about.

Child sexual abuse is a major public policy challenge. Many child protection measures were beginning to reduce its occurrence. However, that progress was impeded by online grooming, the downloading of indecent images of children and even their abuse online in real time. This now places major demands on national and international policing. The book brings together groundbreaking case studies from a wide range of settings. As well as family members and those near the home, offenders can also be found in religious, sporting and childcare settings. Child Sexual Abuse

A guide to language about mental health and psychological well-being in the media and creative arts. Many of us struggle with mental health problems. So it’s important to choose our words carefully and avoid unnecessary oﬀence. We wouldn’t, now, use language that pokes fun at people on the grounds of their sexuality, gender or ethnicity. It is equally unacceptable to insult people because of their mental health status. Download (pdf)

Renowned psychologist Dorothy Rowe examines the changes in the psychiatric system since 1987 in the context of showing how most of our suffering comes from our greatest fear, that of being annihilated as a person, when we shall disappear like a puff of smoke in the wind, never to have existed. ‘Dorothy Rowe has a unique ability to tackle our most fundamental emotions and issues with her innate wisdom, common sense and quiet compassion. In a market saturated with pop psychology paperbacks with their quick-fix jargon, she reminds us that we are both the creators and thus also the destroyers of our deepest fears and looks beyond dependency to encourage us to find our own solutions. Beyond Fear

Do you still need your psychiatric diagnosis? This book will help you to decide. A revolution is underway in mental health. If the authors of the diagnostic manuals are admitting that psychiatric diagnoses are not supported by evidence, then no one should be forced to accept them. If many mental health workers are openly questioning diagnosis and saying we need a different and better system, then service users and carers should be allowed to do so too. This book is about choice. It is about giving people the information to make up their own minds, and exploring alternatives for those who wish to do so. A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Diagnosis

The first edition of Formulation in Psychology and Psychotherapy caught the wave of growing interest in formulation in a clinical context. This completely updated and revised edition summarises recent practice, research, developments and debates while retaining the features that made the first a leading text in the field. It contains new chapters on personal construct formulation, formulation in health settings, and the innovative practice of using formulation in teams. Formulation in Psychology and Psychotherapy

Users and Abusers of Psychiatry is a radically different, critical account of the day-to-day practice of psychiatry. Using real-life examples and her own experience as a clinical psychologist, Lucy Johnstone argues that the traditional way of treating mental illness can often exacerbate people’s original difficulties leaving them powerless, disabled and distressed. In this completely revised and updated second edition, she draws on a range of evidence to present a very different understanding of psychiatric breakdown than that found in standard medical textbooks. Users and Abusers of Psychiatry: A Critical Look at Psychiatric Practice

Psychiatric drugs and their use are amongst the most hotly debated issues in the 21st century. How they work, whether they are effective and how to understand the evidence, and explanations of the major categories of psychiatric drugs are all covered in this clearly written guide. The competing theories of drug action are also explained in easy-to-understand terms. Here, Joanna Moncrieff arms you with some of the information you’ll need to make informed choices about psychiatric drugs. She provides an honest account of the uses of medication, when it is advised and what effects it may have. The book concludes with gives practical advice on the right questions to ask if you are prescribed medication for mental health problems and what happens on withdrawal of medication. A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs

‘Our encounters with Madness‘ is a collection of user, carer and survivor narratives. These are grouped under five themes: On Diagnosis, Stories of Experience, Experiencing the System, On Being a Carer, and Abuse and Survival. The book will be of great benefit to students of mental health, professionals, service users and carers, and to those interested in narrative enquiry and the pedagogy of suffering. Unlike most other books in this genre, the narratives are unmediated. Written by ‘experts by experience’, there are no professional biomedical of psychotherapeutic commentaries, which often serve to capture and tame, or sanitise, such stories of direct experience. Our Encounters with Madness

In Doctoring the Mind, leading clinical psychologist Richard Bentall reveals the shocking truths behind the system of mental health care in the West. With a heavy dependence on pills and the profit they bring, psychiatry has been relying on myths and misunderstandings of madness for too long, and builds on methods which can often hinder rather than help the patient.

Toxic Psychiatry. Drugs and Electroconvulsive Therapy: The Truth and the Better Alternatives: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Biochemical Theories of the New Psychiatry One of America\’s most controversial writers in the field, Breggin, writes about the uses and abuses of electroconvulsive therapy and drug therapy in the USA, where such things are used as cure-alls. He details the success of “talking therapy”, and other psychosocial interventions in helping people diagnosed by psychiatrists as schizophrenic, depressed, panic disordered, hyperactive, and learning disabled, and documents how many of these conditions can be healed through love, guidance, empathy, family therapy, rehabilitation and the teaching of coping skills. And how psychiatry, motivated by power and money, increasingly favours chemical and mechanistic interventions. Toxic Psychiatry. Drugs and Electroconvulsive Therapy

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults and children are added to the government disability rolls because they have become newly disabled by mental illness, with this epidemic spreading most rapidly among our nation’s children. What is going on? Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through that question themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is known today about the biological causes of mental disorders. Do psychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, or do they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studying that question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer. Readers will be startled–and dismayed–to discover what was reported in the scientific journals. Anatomy of an Epidemic

Searching for a Rose Garden: challenging psychiatry, fostering mad studies. Searching for a Rose Garden is an incisive critique of all that is unhelpful about sanestream understandings of and responses to mental distress. Drawing on world-wide survivor activism and scholarship, it explores the toxicity of psychiatry and the co-option and corruption of survivor knowledge and practice by the mainstream. Chapters on survivor research and theory reveal the constant battle to establish and maintain a safe space for experiential knowledge within academia and beyond. Other chapters explore how survivor-developed projects and practices are cultivating a wealth of bright blooms in the most hostile of environments, providing an important vision for the future. Referencing Joanne Greenberg s book I Never Promised you a Rose Garden, this collection demonstrates the challenge, determination and successes of the authors in working towards a paradigm shift in the understanding of madness and distress. Searching for a Rose Garden

When Trauma and Recovery was first published in 1992, it was hailed as a groundbreaking work. In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large.Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking. Trauma and Recovery

This book brings together thirty-seven contributors from ten countries and a wide range of scientific disciplines. It provides an evidence-based, optimistic antidote to the pessimism of biological psychiatry. Models of Madness will be essential reading for all involved in mental health, including service users, family members, service managers, policy makers, nurses, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychoanalysts, social workers, occupational therapists, art therapists. Are hallucinations and delusions really symptoms of an illness called ‘schizophrenia’? Are mental health problems really caused by chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions? Are psychiatric drugs as effective and safe as the drug companies claim? Is madness preventable? Models of Madness

Current psychiatric practices are based on pseudo-scientific assumptions that are barely more valid than those of witchcraft and demonic possession that dominated society’s approach to madness in bygone centuries. The author’s 33 years of experience working as a mental health professional – psychiatric nurse, clinical psychologist and manager – has enabled the creation of a distinctive insider account of the shameful failings of the Western psychiatric system. Not only is the evidence for psychiatry’s deficiencies comprehensively reviewed, but disturbing anecdotes are shared to illustrate how these failings are currently playing out within a psychiatric service near you. Tales from the Madhouse

Dolly Sen is a well known artist and activist working and exploring what it means to experience mental distress and the effects of being labelled with a psychiatric diagnosis. Her art is witty, humorous, but also cutting and coruscating subtly getting under the skin of everyday psychiatric assumptions that leaves one feeling both wiser and nourished yet still in good humour. We are all the better for her art. DSM69 is a small booklet, a notice of intent, containing a selection of Dolly’s art and several manifestos. DSM69

PCCS Books is an independent mental health publisher. PCCS want a better deal for everyone who seeks help for emotional distress – better understanding, better responses, more choices and better outcomes. Their aim is that their publishing reflects that goal. [more]

What causes people to continually relive what they most want to forget, and what treatments could help restore them to a life with purpose and joy? Here, Dr Bessel van der Kolk offers a new paradigm for effectively treating traumatic stress. Neither talking nor drug therapies have proven entirely satisfactory. With stories of his own work and those of specialists around the globe, The Body Keeps the Score sheds new light on the routes away from trauma – which lie in the regulation and syncing of body and mind, using sport, drama, yoga, mindfulness, meditation and other routes to equilibrium. The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

AD4E updates

Search

About AD4E

This one day event is for everyone who is interested in the current debates around mental health. It is a chance to discuss the critical questions of the day around the biomedical model in mental health. [more]